Saturday, August 12, 2017

"Google and its terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week in full" (GOOG)

The story told as only the Register can tell it:

Discriminatory highlights from hell

Comment
Right
off the bat, let's get this straight: on average, ignorant bigots and
well-rounded human beings biologically differ in many ways. These
differences aren't just socially constructed; they're universal across
human cultures.

Bigots that should have been castrated at birth but
raised by well-rounded human beings often still identify and act like
bigots.

None of this is to say that we should not continue to
allow bigots to express their views, or fire them when they do, but I
think we can all agree a good kick in the nuts does everyone a great
deal of good.
Sound familiar?

Jeez Well, this has been a hell of a week for Google.

Storm clouds were already brewing on Monday when, over the weekend, an internal memo from a young male coder on the issue of diversity went viral and led to a gnashing of teeth on social media that could be heard across the world.

It's hard to think of a time when talking about
people's biological differences and noting things like "women are more
anxious" and "men take more dangerous jobs" has had a positive
reception. There's just something about using a long list of stereotypes
to argue your pre-decided conclusion that doesn't engender much love in
people.

Briefly, on a tangent, do you know why Asians are
such bad drivers? Or why Blacks are such fast runners? No, seriously,
it's statistically true. Just look at the stats from the department of
transport/athletics federation. I'm just pointing to the facts. Freedom
of speech, man!

Before Google even opened its doors on Monday, people
were calling for the head of whoever had written the so-called
"manifesto". It didn't take long for his name to come out – James
Damore.

And then came the interwebs explosion, which followed
the nasty pattern we have all unfortunately grown used to this past
year: denunciation followed by demands for immediate action, followed by
a counter-attack, followed by immediate taking of sides and as much
unpleasantness as everyone can muster.

It seems that these days, we don't even wait on TV
pundits to jam any issue into a left-right political lens. In this case
it was there from the start: in Damore's text.

"We're told by senior leadership that what we're
doing is both the morally and economically correct thing to do, but
without evidence this is just veiled left ideology," he wrote before piling into all the bad things those "on the left" do.

"Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of humanities and social
scientists lean left (about 95%), which creates enormous confirmation
bias, changes what’s being studied, and maintains myths like social
constructionism and the gender wage gap."

"In addition to the Left’s affinity for those it sees as weak, humans are generally biased towards protecting females."

"Ironically, IQ tests were initially championed by the Left when meritocracy meant helping the victims of the aristocracy."

"Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence."

And on, and on.

In some respects, you can see why Google felt it had no choice but to fire him. The document was hurtful and offensive as well as openly dismissive and contemptuous of the ad giant's own culture.

It also created havoc as managers scrambled to
schedule meetings to talk about it, and staff called in sick. When the
issue becomes so big that the CEO felt he had to cut short his vacation,
someone was going to have to pay for it.

You're fired
But then, Google made the situation worse. Pretty
much everyone who hadn't piled into the pitched online battle felt that
Google erred by firing Damore.

Not only had it ruined an opportunity to show that it
was mature enough to handle the situation and argue for its values but
it appeared to confirm Damore's claim that any form of dissent was not
tolerated at the tech goliath.

It should have been immediately obvious to Google
executives that if it fired Damore straight away, without some kind of
process, that his politically charged writing would become that week's
focus of righteous indignation from the fringes. And so it was with the
much-vaunted "alt-right" attack dogs let loose on their keyboards.

It also acted as a catalyst for awful behavior. We listed
our top five dreadful people that used the row to espouse yet more
offensive and hateful rhetoric. Somewhat inevitably, that story also
came under attack.

It was a few days until more reasoned and informed
voices joined – many of them ignored if there wasn't anything
sufficiently salacious or outrageous to pick up and hurl at the other
side.

David P. Schmitt, one of the authors of a study
cited repeatedly by Damore to justify his arguments (Why Can’t a Man Be
More Like a Woman? Sex Differences in Big Five Personality Traits
Across 55 Cultures) wrote a blog post in which he noted "it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace."

"Using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an
entire group of people’s personality is like surgically operating with
an axe," he warned. "Not precise enough to do much good, probably will
cause a lot of harm."...